the "incident" at UT

I recognize a lot of folks are checking this blog for commentary on the events that took place here on Tuesday. A young man here at the university fired an assault rifle into the air, then entered the library, and took his own life. I have a lot to say---but things have been so crazy here I've had little time to say it. I hope to reflect on these events soon---I just have to find the time to do so. This week has been, in a word, "crazy."

Until I have a moment to really take time to reflect, I will report that I'm currently prepping my class discussion for tomorrow. I have decided to scrap what I woud have talked about on Tuesday or tomorrow in class, instead opting for an open discussion about the "incident" (as it has come to be referenced). I want to provide my students (and myself) a forum to "work-through" this in class---I'm just not sure, even at this late hour, how to do so in a responsible and ethical way. I have been reading-up on the events here in 1966 (the tower shootings) and revisiting the work done on Columbine, VA Tech, and Northern Illinois University. I sense there is an imperative to talk about what happened, and to provide a space and forum to "work through" the issues---I'm just very confused about how to frame this productively. There are so many issues that this incident of violence raises, and these issues are so far out of bounds---of my training, of the norm, of what we know how to talk about.

I'm posting this as a placeholder, then. There is a pedagological imperative here. I'm not sure what it is. We have to think hard and critically about issues of violence, of depression, of media coverage, and of existential questions that college should really be the place to address. And there is this nagging voice that we should not overreact to "the incident"---that at some remove the drama of trauma plays into a machine of spectacle that organizes affect for this or that political end. How does one provide a space for critical thinking and reflection that does not collapse onto melancholic scripts of enjoyment? I worry that even my desire to have the class engage it participates in a maudlin cultural repertoire of collective injury. Gosh, I don't know. I have to figure this out by 12:30 tomorrow. I will. I'm going to revisit the report produced by the Northern Illinois University for help. If the classroom is not THE place to discuss this with students, I don't know where it is. (Well, it's not cable news). From a historical vantage, this sort of thing is not "new"---violence erupts. But how to engage the complexity of the drama in a way that does not reduce it to a video-game, in a way that recognizes the rupture as a symptom, that is the challenge? My leaning is just to say exactly this---that I don't know exactly how to adress it, and let that be the starting point for discussion.

Crap. I have to figure out how to get to sleep; and then, I have to figure out how to teach. I recognize walking into class and teaching as I normally would is not an option--is not responsible. Oh, but how to respond?